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 What to say about these stories? At first it seems that Cummins does what he does because he is able to do it. But it isn’t long before the reader perceives that Cummins is not reveling in this cruel world. He is moved, as are we after we begin to understand him, by intense compassion. This is not an easy book but it is one that is impossible to forget.
Reviewed by Bob Williams
Local Music
by Walter Cummins
Egress Books
2007, ISBN 978-1-933435-16-9, $15.95, 230 pages
A voluminous writer of short stories, Walter Cummins has published in many literary magazines and has two collections already published. In addition he has been co-author of other books and teaches creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
There are seventeen stories in this collection. Some are only a few pages long. His characters are pared down, without hope, and intensely drawn into themselves. His narrative continues until nothing more is to be said. The protagonist at the story’s conclusion is slumped against insuperable barriers. If he or she is able to continue, it can only be in the wretched round to which he or she is already condemned. This is not a happy book.
In ‘Visiting,’ a characteristic story, a brother comes to see his sister in her new home with her new husband and their children from their respective former marriages. The husband’s ex-wife, with whom he sometimes still has sex, also lives with them. The ex-wife is the present wife’s best friend. Of the children, the two oldest boys are always stoned, the two youngest boys are vicious enemies and the daughter is a slut. The brother, desperate to help his sister, whose awareness of her peculiar world is dimmed by alcoholism, asks her if she wants to talk to him about anything.
“ ‘About what?’
‘Your life.’
She blinked up at him, eyes dazzled with bewilderment.”
And so the story ends on a note that is chillingly expressive. This kind of simplicity characterizes the writing of these stories. Cummins’s characters engage with life but are afraid of it, allow their appetites to rule them, and have no resources.
Some of Cummins’s men and women live in the shabbiest possible surroundings, a few of them seem to live more in their automobiles, usually decrepit and barely functioning, than under a roof. Finding better shelter fuels many of the stories and the resulting inadequacies of the new shelter or of the neighborhood dictates the direction of the narratives. In the deeply buried current of humanity that runs through the men, women, and children of Cummins’s stories sudden unions and spontaneous outbursts of tears become occasionally the vehicle of at least temporary salvation. But it is also as likely that a wife will without warning leave a husband or a husband a wife. It’s a bleak world where men and women collide and part remorselessly.
What to say about these stories? At first it seems that Cummins does what he does because he is able to do it. But it isn’t long before the reader perceives that Cummins is not reveling in this cruel world. He is moved, as are we after we begin to understand him, by intense compassion. This is not an easy book but it is one that is impossible to forget. Not every reader will be able to endure this writer’s vision, but for those that can, this is a rewarding and moving experience.
About the Reviewer: Bob Williams is retired and lives in a small town with his wife, dogs and a cat. He has been collecting books all his life, and has done freelance writing, mostly on classical music. His principal interests are James Joyce, Jane Austen and Homer. His writings, two books and a number of short articles on Joyce, can be accessed at: http://www.grand-teton.com/service/Persons_Places
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